


Becoming

by merelypassingtime



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint hates Medical, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Happy Ending, M/M, and boy is he gonna be in luck from now on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27784483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelypassingtime/pseuds/merelypassingtime
Summary: When Clint falls off a building (again), he isn’t as injured as everyone expects.Turns out that can be a problem in itself.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 29
Kudos: 134





	Becoming

**Author's Note:**

> Yea! For the first time in years, I got my birthday story done.  
> And, as a gift to myself, I wrote this cracky, fluffy story that’s been stuck in the back of my head for months.  
> Sorry, but happy birthday to me. ;)  
> All the love to the wonderful cruciatusforeplay for beta reading this for me on such short notice so I could meet my arbitrary deadline. Thanks so much!

“Oh, come on, Bucky…” Clint whined.

“No,” Bucky said firmly. “You’re staying in that bed until the doctor comes back.”

“But it’s been hours.”

“It’s been one hour.”

“One and a half.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I don’t care, you’re not leaving until the doctor says it’s okay.”

“But I’m fine!” Clint said, gesturing down at himself as if to prove his point. It probably would have been more convincing if he hadn’t still been wearing his torn, blood stained combat gear.

Bucky gave him an unimpressed look. “You fell off a building.”

“Only a little one.”

“It was four stories!”

“So?” Clint shrugged. “The dumpster broke my fall.”

“You mean the one you fucking bounced out of like a rubber ball before you landed face first on the asphalt?”

“It looked a lot worse than it was. I’m fine. Really. The paramedic even said so.”

Bucky scoffed, “Yeah, she said that but she looked pretty worried while she was saying it. Then she insisted that you needed to come to medical.”

“And I did! I even wasted an hour and a half here. Now, I’m going home,” Clint declared, moving to sit up.

“Clinton Francis Barton, if you try to get out of that bed again I’m gonna tie you to it.”

“Ooo, in a sexy way?” Clint asked, not laying back down.

“No, not while you’re in medical and smell like a dumpster.”

Clint experimentally started to swing his legs over the edge of the bed, but Bucky gave him a flat look that he’d been successfully using to subdue stubborn invalids since before Clint’s parents were born.

Clint sighed and laid down, looking sulky. Bucky ignored him, falling back into parade rest in his position next to the bed. After a moment, Clint reached out a hand and Bucky took it, holding it while they waited.

Twenty minutes later, just as Bucky could tell Clint was building up to another escape attempt, Dr Cho finally came back. 

Bucky sighed in relief, then wished he could take it back when Dr Banner and Stark followed her through the door.

Clint clearly agreed with him. “Aw, multiple doctors, no.”

“It’s nothing bad, per say,” Dr Cho reassured him.

Bucky narrowed his eyes, not feeling very reassured.

Tony held up his hand in placation. “I promise, Inspector Gadget, your boy is fine.”

“Ha!” Clint exclaimed, “Fine! See, I told you so.”

When he started to slide off the bed again, Bruce said quietly, “Hang on, there’s more.”

 _Of course there is,_ Bucky thought. He took half a step closer to the bed so he could rest a hand on Clint’s leg, waiting for the bad news.

He knew he looked forbidding because Dr Cho had to clear her throat before she started, and when she spoke it was into to her clipboard. “The problem is, you shouldn’t be fine. I studied the footage from the fight and you fell more than forty feet and landed flat on the ground. You should have broken bones at the very least and probably sustained internal injuries too. Instead, you came in with only deep bruising, and even that has measurably shrunk since you were admitted.”

“Okaayyy…” Clint drawled, “I’m not hearing a problem there. Where is the problem?”

“The problem is why we think you survived the fall,” Bruce said.

Bucky bristled at the word survived, and Clint gave the hand on his leg a comforting pat before glaring at the three scientists. “Alright, stop dancing around it and just tell us.”

Tony jumped in. “Long story short, we think you’ve somehow been infected by the supersoldier serum.”

“Infected?” Clint asked sharply.

“That’s maybe a poor choice of words,” Bruce said, “but it has been spread or transferred to you.”

“How?”

“We’re not completely sure,” Dr Cho admitted. “Honestly, we’re not even completely sure it’s supersoldier serum right now.”

“Yeah, it’s a little like Steve’s but not completely the same,” Bruce added.

“It’s really close though,” Tony argued.

“No,” Bruce argued back. “It’s just in the same general family.”

Dr Cho said, “Really, it’s a lot more like that sample we recovered from a Hydra base, though again, not quite the same.”

Bucky heard Hydra and felt a stab of panic in his heart. 

Loudly he cut into the bickering. “But how could Hydra have gotten a hold of Clint?”

“We don’t think it was Hydra,” Dr Cho answered quickly. “We know for sure that whatever is in his blood is fairly new because after the Battle of New York everyone on the team had a full physical-”

Clint twitched a little, as if recalling the time, and Bucky was fairly sure that his ‘physical’ had been a lot more thorough and a lot less friendly than everyone else’s had.

“-and there wasn’t a trace at that time. So, it must have happened in the last year.”

“But when?” Clint asked. “I’ve only been kidnapped, like, um-”

“Eight times this year,” Bucky supplied.

Clint looked surprised. “Really? Wow. It didn’t feel like that many. Is that counting the times Nat did it?” 

“No.”

“Fuck. I should probably be more careful.”

Bucky huffed but didn’t say anything, so Clint continued, “Anyway, only one of those times was Hydra, and I was conscious the whole time. I’d have remembered if they gave me anything.”

“Besides,” Tony said, “despite working on it for decades, Hydra’s never been able to reproduce the supersoldier serum any more than we have. That’s why we’re pretty sure it wasn’t Hydra directly.”

Bucky relaxed a little.

Clint didn’t. “Directly? What does that mean?”

The three of them traded looks, clearly deciding who was going to drop whatever bomb they had.

It was Tony who finally stepped up to the plate. “That’s the thing: Given how similar the serum is to the one Hydra had and your recent relationship with Chuckles here, we think you may have gotten the serum from him.”

“From me?” Bucky demanded. “How? It’s not like we’re doing blood transfusions or anything.”

“Not yet,” Clint interjected. “I’m still working him up to the really kinky stuff.”

“We don’t think it would have to be blood you exchanged,” Bruce said, sounding nervous.

Bucky was still working that out when Clint startled him by laughing. Bucky looked at him, puzzled for a moment before he worked it out too.

“Sex,” he said flatly over Clint’s laughter.

“Yup,” Tony said. “That’s what the crazy kids are calling it these days.”

Bucky stared at him blankly while Clint laughed and everyone else avoided making eye contact.

“So,” Clint finally managed between his giggles, “you’re saying I caught superpowers as an STD?”

“That’s our theory anyway,” Dr Cho said.

Clint started laughing again.

Tony rolled his eyes and ignored him to address Bucky. “We aren’t sure, not a hundred percent. We’d like to get a sample of your blood to test it against Clint's, just to make sure you are the source of the serum.”

Bucky shook his head emphatically. “No. No tests.”

“But we need to understand what's going on here,” Dr Cho said.

“No,” Clint said, suddenly sober. “Bucky’s right. No more tests on either of us.”

He moved to get out of the bed and this time Bucky stepped back to give him room to stand.

“Wait, you can’t go,” Tony said, moving to block the doorway. “We need to know more. What if it isn’t permanent, or there are side effects? Maybe we can even reverse it.”

 _Or refine it and start using it to turn out more supersoldiers,_ Bucky thought. He traded a look with Clint and knew he was thinking the same thing.

Putting on his most Wintery face he took a step towards the door. “We’re done here.”

When it looked like Tony would argue on, Bruce, who had been quiet up to that point, rested a hand on his shoulder. “Tony, I think we should let them go.” 

After a second, Tony slumped. He nodded stiffly and stepped away from the door, letting them through. As they walked out, Bruce nodded slightly, his eyes serious and Bucky thought that if anyone would understand the perils of screwing around with unknown serums, it would be him. He felt better knowing at least one person there would respect their privacy, and would probably talk the other two into doing the same, at least for now.

Both men were quiet on the elevator ride to their apartment. Bucky’s mind was in turmoil, but Clint seemed genuinely unbothered. Of course, Clint was harder to read then a lot of people gave him credit for. Still, even after they were home and the door closed and locked between the world and them, Clint remained no more upset than he generally was after a trip to the medical floor. 

He moved through the apartment making a beeline for the coffee machine. Bucky followed him, watching carefully for any hint that the calmness was an act. He didn’t find one.

After he set the coffee to brew CIint turned back to where Bucky was standing a few feet away, feeling unsettled and unsure. 

“You know, I can hear you thinking,” he said. “Loudly.”

“I just wasn’t sure you were really okay with all of this,” Bucky said, waving his arm inarticulately.

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not like there’s anything wrong with being strong and healing fast. Exactly the opposite in fact.”

“Maybe, but it’s still a big change, and one you didn’t choose.”

Clint shrugged, “But I would have chosen it, if I had known I could.”

“Why?”

Bucky watched as Clint started to sidestep with a joke, then stopped himself. When he answered his voice was warm, filled with emotion. “For you mostly. I mean, I’m not gonna lie and tell you I'm not really fucking glad to not be in medical with my ribs broken again, but mostly I’m always going to choose to be with you for as long I can manage it. This will help me do that- help me be with you even longer.”

“Clint, I-’ Bucky started, then didn’t know what to say. 

Clint grinned wryly. “Now you’re stuck with me. Guess you should have thought about that before you went and had unprotected sex.” Then his grin faded, replaced with a doubt that broke Bucky’s heart. “Unless you’d rather not be, of course. I know you didn’t exactly choose this either.”

Quickly, Bucky stepped forward. Cupping Clint’s cheek with his right hand, he said, “Hey, no. I want to be with you forever too, sweetheart. If anything, I’m only worried that your copy of the serum won’t be permanent.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. Then, because he knew the emotions where getting too be a little too much for either of them, he added, “I guess we’re gonna have to have a lot more sex to make sure we keep you safe.”

Clint laughed. “Oh, man. That’s going to be rough.”

“It’d be better if it was hard.”

“Give me a minute, and it will be,” Clint leered.

“Good,” Bucky said, making his voice deep with a hint of a growl, the way he knew Clint liked, “because, just to be safe, I think we should have sex right now. I don’t want the serum to wear off while you’re still healing.”

Bucky pressed in close, crowding Clint against the kitchen counter. Clint leaned into the contact, his hands dropping to Bucky’s ass to pull him in even closer.

“You have a compelling point there,“ Clint said, grinding against him. “I guess we should make sure, if you’re up for it.”

Bucky stretched up, kissing Clint soft and sweet. When they were both a little breathless, he pulled back and said, “Up for more time with you, doll? Always.”

Grinning, Clint leaned in for another kiss just as Bucky stepped back. “After you take a shower.”

Clint squawked in outrage, “Asshole.”

To Bucky, it sounded a lot like, ‘I love you.’


End file.
